


a chip in the ice

by fraldarian



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Folklore, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Sylvix Advent Calendar (Fire Emblem)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28157589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraldarian/pseuds/fraldarian
Summary: Sylvain is a spirit that brings good tidings and sweet dreams. Felix is one of the Nøkken, a water being that lures mortals through music alone. Over the course of several decades, a story unfolds through the exchanging of gifts.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 15
Kudos: 70
Collections: Sylvix Advent Calendar





	a chip in the ice

**Author's Note:**

> this was for the 2020 sylvix advent calendar! i collaborated with @holymcgillis on twitter to bring to life a folktale based on scandinavian folklore (with a twist!).

In the beginning, there is a closet.

It’s a standard closet, all things considered. It’s got a knob that’s missing and a chip in its side. The chip is low enough to the ground that a child’s eye could poke through it, if they so desired. It’s ancient and archaic, and it looms above even the largest of men. It also happens to be the home of a little boy.

There are not any words in the English language to describe him. He is here, and there, and yet he is not all the same. He’s got eyelashes like his mother’s, dark eyes like his father’s, and a nest of carmine hair like his brother’s. He’s constructed of only the most fashionable traits, and if there are any faulty wirings to be found, they’re hidden behind porcelain cheeks and a toothy grin.

There are lots of rumours about him, of course. Ones that are brought from the edge of obscurity and fashioned into the air as stories. Warnings, of a sort. The most common involves a well, two brothers, and a winter’s night.

A lot goes on that night. Sylvain doesn’t die, yet he doesn’t necessarily live either. In the end, there is a lot of speculation as to what he becomes. Whatever it is, he’s left without a heart, and instead a pouch that beats steadily between open palms. When he looks inside, he’s left staring back at the smallest of paradises imaginable. In his fingertips he draws forth sand.

Once upon a time, someone might have conjured up a story about him. Something to do with the boy who lived in the closet made from primordial trees. Something about seeking revenge, or finding love, or perhaps understanding what it is he’s meant to do. In the end though, no one does such a thing, and as the centuries tick by his story is lost to twilight.

When he finds the man in the lake, Sylvain Gautier is no longer a boy. He’s aged, and filled his boots, and the clothes he wears are of his own creation. They’re made from the smoothest variants of satin and silk, and next to the violinist before him, Sylvain could very well be called royalty.

“It would do little good for you to stare, godling.” 

Sylvain startles. The man - no, the creature - in front of him stares back. He’s got dark eyes, darker than his own.

“I was simply passing through. I haven’t yet reached the children in the next village over.” Sylvain’s hand tightens minutely around his little magic pouch. 

The being scoffs. He’s sitting on the water’s edge, atop ice thin enough that it should break under his weight. Instead, he’s got a violin in his lap and a bow resting across it. His ankles dip below the surface of a patch of cracked ice, fully clad in daks. It should be uncomfortable, but it isn’t. Not for him. “Then move along. I don’t see why you’ve stopped. I don’t like people watching me. Especially not a bastard like yourself.”

Sylvain quiets. There’s an annoyance festering inside him, one that’s hot and ugly and finds him cowering. “You call me a godling, and yet a bastard all the same. Care to make up your mind?”

“A godling can be a bastard. As minor as you may be.” Picking up the violin, the spirit sets it neatly beneath his chin. The bow lies positioned, like a weapon at ready. “You are easy to read. I’ve seen you before. What I gather from you is that you’re neither of our world nor the humans’. Am I correct?”

He should leave. “I’m hardly a godling.”

The stranger smiles. “To the villagers you are. To us Nøkken you are little more than a disturbance. A flash in the night sky. You and those tedious creations of yours.”

One of the Nøkken. That explains his presence, then. Water spirits that drowned the unfortunate. Something about the newly gained knowledge makes Sylvain’s gut twist. There is nothing pretty with death.

There’s an unreadable expression on the Nøkken’s face, or perhaps it is simply carelessness. Whatever it may be, he breaks eye contact. Sylvain finds he doesn’t miss his face. “You aren’t saying anything. Which means our conversation is over. Go - I have matters to attend to. As do you, dreamer.”

In the end, the spirit isn’t lying. When Sylvain conjures a pegasus of sand and lifts from the ground, he can hear his bow on the winter winds. If he listens close enough, there’s a voice that carries along with it. Low, and fleecy like the wool of a shaven lamb.

It is a song of death. Sylvain does not want to know who the recipient is.

Sylvain doesn’t see him again. Not that he expects to. Winter thaws and any trace of the man is gone. When he does see him - or at least, hear him - it’s a year later, when the first frost makes itself known.

He’s sitting where he was last time, knee-deep in water with a violin across his thighs. He’s exchanged poor trousers for robes, and around his belt he carries a pouch. It’s a beautiful rich, deep violet decorated with a golden design. Sylvain wonders how he ever found such expensive dye.

“I know you’re here.”

Sylvain startles. He’s been lingering too long, and now he’s been detected. Trying his best to smooth back a wave of mortification, Sylvain touches ground and runs a hand through windblown hair. “Hah. Sorry. I wasn’t planning on staying long.”

The Nøkken turns his head. For all that is different about his garbs, he still has the same Stygian hair and the same sepia eyes. “You’re out early. I would hardly imagine any of the humans are asleep. The sun has barely left the sky.”

It should not be the case that Sylvain came only to hear him play, for he has only heard him once. But still, somewhere inside him, there’s a familiar desire to see him pick up his bow and press it to well-worn strings. Is this how mortals feel? Is this how they meet their demise? Instead, he says this: “I haven’t seen you in months. Where did you go?”

This, more than anything, makes the spirit freeze. For a second Sylvain detects a flicker of emotion in his eyes, and he pinpoints it as surprise. “I hardly think that matters. Did you really come here to ask where I’ve been? I’ve been here. In the lake. As I always have.”

Somehow, that seems more lie than truth. There are other Nøkken here, and Sylvain knows it, because each one plays a song that’s more different than the last. They’re as unique as the lines on his palm, and never once has Sylvain heard the violin sitting in front of him play again. In the end, he doesn’t press. For now, at the very least.

“You changed. You’re wearing a dress.” Sylvain’s eyes linger on his form, from the fur on his shoulders down to the brooch around his waist. The pouch sits among them.

“And?” the spirit asks. “I didn’t think such things were only for mortals. I can dress as I please.”

Sylvain swallows. He doesn’t miss the way the Nøkken’s eyes dart to and fro, doesn’t miss the way his eyes linger on the pouch at Sylvain’s side. After a moment he reaches to his belt, unclasping the purple pouch and holding it in his hands.

“Purple dye is a rare commodity,” Sylvain notes.

“I know,” he responds.

“Why did you make such a thing?”

“Because your pouch is beginning to fray.”

Sylvain startles. It’s true. While he may be immortal, his pouch is not. The seams holding it together have begun to fall apart, and soon enough it will break. The problem comes not with finding the necessary materials to fix it, but that Sylvain does not know how to. “I didn’t think you noticed.”

The spirit sneers. “I always notice. Now take it.” Forcefully he grabs Sylvain’s wrist, and his hands are so cold, colder than anything Sylvain has ever touched that for a moment he nearly jerks away.

Except the nøkken does first, as if he’s been burned. “Go,” he snaps. “Use that one. It’s stronger than your last.”

Sylvain stares at the pouch to the man. For a second he says nothing; no one has ever given him anything. And then he clears his throat, and fixes his face with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Thank you.” And then, “may I have a name? To call you by?”

The spirit turns away, all interest seemingly gone. He picks up his bow. “Felix.”

Sylvain’s smile grows. He feels it touch his gaze. “Sylvain.”

Felix scowls. “I demanded you go already.”

A laugh, followed by Sylvain filling his new pouch. In his hands, he pinches golden sand. “As you say, Felix.”

The icy glare he receives can be felt even as he flies off.

The winter months are good. Sylvain falls into a lull as the frost creeps and the snow falls. Each night there’s a melody on the January wind that accompanies Sylvain, and each morning the singing of a bow on string quiets him like a lullaby.

Until, of course, winter ends. By the time the frost begins to thaw and melt in the early mornings of spring, Felix is gone. Sylvain notices sooner than he’d like to acknowledge, though he’s sure it has less to do with the lack of Felix’s voice than it does his violin. Felix doesn’t talk much anyways, even when they’re so deep in their morning discussions that Sylvain thinks he could spend another century underneath the lake’s trees listening to Felix. It’s his violin that does the talking for him, and it's his violin that Sylvain fails to hear the next year, or the next after.

In fact, it’s another ten years before he sees Felix again.

Felix looks horrible. Sylvain can see that much. He looks about as cold as the frost around him, and in his hands there is nothing. Not even a bow.

“What the hell?” Sylvain says. There’s something ugly rearing its head inside of him, and Sylvain doesn’t think he likes it.

Clearly, he’s caught Felix off guard. The spirit turns around, dark eyes boring holes into Sylvain’s skull. “Nice greeting.” His lip curls in a sneer, and despite Sylvain seeing the action so many times, it feels different somehow. It makes him feel small, weak.

“You disappeared. For an entire decade.” A decade isn’t a long time for an immortal. Hell, it should feel like the blink of an eye. Except without Felix, it feels like an entire century. Sylvain didn’t realize how much he’d grown to enjoy their conversations.

“I didn’t disappear,” Felix snaps. He looks estranged. “I’ve been here. Don’t you see? The frost has come.”

Sylvain does see. In fact, he’s staring. The frost creeps along the grass steadily, like a wolf in the woods that’s gone for a farmer’s stray mare. Still, it doesn’t make sense. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Felix makes a noise in the back of his throat. “I’m the one who controls it. I’m the one that brings winter.”

Oh.

“I didn’t know,” Sylvain murmurs. He looks away, stretches an arm over his head, and rubs at the back of his neck until it’s pink from friction. “Is that why? Is that why you’re not around the rest of the year?”

Felix shrugs. “I’m still here. I sleep. In the water.”

That brings a knowing smile to Sylvain’s lips. It was as he thought, all those years ago; calling Felix the man in the lake really wasn’t all that far from the truth. Felix must think his smile means something else - after all, how would he know such a thing? - and promptly he sneers defensively.

“What are _you_ smirking about?” He sounds high strung, on the edge.

“Nothing!” Sylvain quickly amends. “Nothing.” There’s a hollow silence that falls over them afterwards. Until eventually, Sylvain finds the bravery necessary. “You never told me.” He looks away. “Was it always like this? I have never met one of your kind that had the same … powers.”

Felix laughs bitterly. It feels colder than the falling snow around them. “No. It was a punishment, from my father. I went against his orders.”

That gets Sylvain to go quiet. For once, he dares not speak. He feels like if he does, then it’ll ruin the precarious situation he’s gotten himself into. Felix will cease to speak, and they’ll go back to whatever it is they used to do.

“My brother,” Felix explains, “died a long time ago. My relationship with my father has been estranged since then.”

Sylvain knows a thing or two about brothers. He knows a thing or two about dying as well. “We don’t need to talk about it,” he says instead, “if you don’t want to.” Some things are better when left in the past. There’s no need to open new wounds.

Except Felix presses on. “He was killed by the king’s men. There was a mortal boy we used to visit. Except - it wasn’t - out of malicious intent. He - was a friend.” His words come haltingly, as if afraid to speak on the topic. Sylvain thinks about placing a hand to his shoulder, if only to see if it’s as cold as his hands were so long ago. “My father went into a fit after learning what we’d been doing. He told us to stop. Except we didn’t, and my brother - Glenn - was killed. The king asked for his head.”

So that’s why Felix had been punished. And yet it still seemed unjust to punish the actions of a mere child so severely. It leaves something sour, yet familiar, curdling in his gut.

“All that I have left is his violin. It is what I trained with and still use. Except I have broken my bow. I feel ashamed of being a Nøkken if I can’t play the part.”

Oh. That can be fixed, can it not? “I can help you,” Sylvain says without thinking. “Look. Come here.”

Felix hesitates for one, two, three seconds before making his way over. The snow crunches underneath his bare feet. “What?” he jeers, handing the bow over for Sylvain to peer at. “It’s not so easily fixed. Catgut is hard to come by. Don’t tell me you have some.”

Sylvain laughs at Felix’s incredulity. “Of course not. But look. Watch me.” Cradling the bow to his chest as if a gift bestowed by the gods (which isn’t accurate, could never be accurate, because Felix was better than the gods above, more real, more _alive_ -), he dips into his drawstring pouch and pinches sand delicately between forefinger and thumb. It’s easy then, to craft the strings in thin air, to watch as his mind alone mends the sand into a viable item. The strings shimmer in the moonlight, and when Sylvain stretches them taut along the bow, it looks more beautiful than it ever did before.

When he looks at Felix, Sylvain finds that he’s been stared at the entire time.

“What did you do?” Felix asks softly, taking the bow from Sylvain’s hands. It’s then that Sylvain notices how slender his fingers are, how smooth his palms look. He wants to touch them. 

“Heh, you know. Nothing much. I just added a few special touches.”

Felix is already lifting the bow to his violin. The instrument is tucked neatly underneath his chin, poised at the ready. “Alright then. Let’s see how well this fares.”

Thus begins a private concert with the admission of one. Sitting on one of the shore rocks, Sylvain lets the melody of Felix’s violin fill his ears. It’s beautiful, more stunning than it was even before Sylvain had repaired it. He wonders, for the briefest of seconds, if his own magic has helped amplify it.

By the time Felix is done, Sylvain is already giving a slow, loud round of applause. “Bravo,” he croons. “I don’t think you’ve ever let me watch from this close.”

“Consider it a repayal,” Felix grunts. “For fixing my strings.”

Sylvain laughs. “I hardly did anything.”

That brings a scowl to Felix’s face. “You don’t need to lie. You wasted your sand on fixing catgut.” Felix scoffs. “And by the looks of it, you’ve made my violin sound better than it did prior.”

Blushing, Sylvain shrugs and looks down. In the grand scheme of things, it’s nothing, really. A little pinch and an added touch of thought. But if Felix thinks it’s bigger than that, more important than however Sylvain perceives it, then maybe it truly is. “That I didn’t mean to do,” he says with a small smile. “I didn’t know my sand would do that. But it sounds good. I like it - no, love it. It sounds beautiful.”

Sylvain thinks he’s done something wrong for a moment, said something he shouldn’t have, because Felix isn’t speaking to him. Except when he looks up, he finds that he’s wrong; instead, Felix is staring at him with an unreadable expression. When he finds he’s been caught, Felix looks away as sharply as his hands had all those years ago.

It stings a little.

“Thank you,” Felix says curtly. “I think you should go. I have work to do.”

Sylvain’s smile turns down, into something more faux, more tight-lipped. “Of course,” he says. There is no more discussion to be had, not when Felix is asking him to leave like this.

Sylvain grabs his things. As Felix said, there’s work to be done.

The rest of the winter passes by as it normally does. There’s conversations here and there, but always there is the sound of Felix’s violin on the wind.

There’s a conversation they have at some point. Felix is telling him about what he remembers of other seasons. Not much, by the sounds of it, though there is talk of fresh fruit and roasted chestnuts and acorns that fall from trees as if they are the sky itself crumbling.

Felix says nothing grows in winter. Sylvain disagrees. He thinks that if he could show him, then perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. In the end, that’s what he does. By late fall he’s gathered an acorn in his palms, no cracks along its skin and as smooth as they come. It’s smaller than most, but Sylvain thinks that’s what gives it charm.

“You know,” he says to Felix one day. “They say if acorns fall in large numbers, then a rough winter is on the way.”

Sylvain is seated on a pillow of sand just above the lake. It means Felix has to crane his head upwards to look. “That is ridiculous. Surely humans don’t think that’s true?”

A laugh follows, warm and hearty as it bubbles from Sylvain’s chest. “I don’t know. Perhaps.” From his pockets he brandishes the acorn he’d picked last season. “I brought you this. It’s an acorn. From an oak tree.” He drops it several feet into Felix’s awaiting hands. “You seem to forget even sprouts grow in the winter. That acorn will grow into a tree.”

Felix looks dumbfounded. Either he doesn’t know what an acorn is, or it’s been so long since he’s seen one that it feels more like a small treasure than the seed of a tall plant. “You didn’t need to give me this,” Felix says quietly. Felix is always quiet, always brooding, but now his words seem softer, more foreign. “Thank you.”

Sylvain smiles, wide and easy. “We can plant it together.”

“That sounds stupid.”

“Ouch.”

“I didn’t say no.”

That more than anything makes a wave of warmth flow through Sylvain. Dispersing his cloud of sand and floating down to the ground, Sylvain pinches a golden stream between his palms and piles it like dust near the shoreline. It’s warm, and melts the snow around it. It looks cozy enough for a tree to begin digging its roots.

“Well?” Sylvain says, at the same time that Felix crouches down.

For a second Felix doesn’t speak, instead inspecting the resplendent sand. Soon enough he buries the acorn in the pile, hands familiarly gentle.

For all that Felix s and does, Sylvain thinks his hands are his kindest feature. Never did they seem harsh, like Miklan’s.

“There,” Felix finally says. “That should do it.”

Sylvain peers over his shoulder. Even from here, he can feel how cold Felix is. “We can tend to it together,” he states. “When you’re not around, I’ll come. I’ll water it and prune it.”

Felix glances up, tilting his head back to stare at Sylvain. “Okay.” His voice seems distant, lost in thought. “That … sounds good. Ideal.”

Sylvain holds out his hand.

Felix takes it.

Sylvain tells him later about who he was. Before he’d ever become immortal. They’re sitting by the lake, and somehow, despite everything, Felix’s fingers are still on top of his. They don’t feel as sharp anymore, as cold. It feels almost like they’re thawing.

The story comes to life. There’s a well, as always. Two brothers, a broken home, and the realization that fresh blood bleeds brightest when framed in the moonlight.

Felix doesn’t talk through any of it. Sylvain is grateful.

“His name was Miklan,” Sylvain is saying. “He was several years older. A bastard by birth. His mother was one of the house maids. It made him angry to know he wouldn’t be taking over the family merchantry business. It ensured his future as a broken man, and eventually he turned to fistfighting bets and looting for money.” He shrugs. “He died a long time ago. I don’t … I don’t miss him. I don’t think I could.”

Felix is still quiet. “I think brothers cause more grief than they’re worth.” He’s not looking at Sylvain when he speaks, is instead focused on the distant shores of the lake. “I should not resent Glenn. I think, in the end, I don’t. If anything I resent myself. But I wonder what would have happened if I had heeded my father’s words. I haven’t talked to him since I was cursed.”

“He’s like you, isn’t he? He couldn’t have cursed you on his own.” It didn’t make sense. Felix’s father - no, Rodrigue, as he’d come to learn - was of the same kind as Felix. The Nøkken might have had jurisdiction over some powers, but a minor spirit could bestow nothing of the sort on Felix.

A shake of Felix’s head answers his questions. “No. He wasn’t alone. Not that I know of. But I don’t know how he did it. I’ve never asked.”

Sylvain frowns in thought. “I think you should find him,” he ponders out loud. “Ask him. Make amends, or at least … soothe rough waters. You may never know.”

It’s a long time before Felix speaks. “I think,” he finally says, “that you’re right. However much I may not like to admit it.”

There’s something else on Felix’s mind. That much is made clear when he avoids looking Sylvain in the eyes. He doesn’t know what it is, or what he’s thinking, and distantly Sylvain dreams of seeing into Felix’s mind. If only he were able to grant himself such frivolities.

Instead he says nothing, and even when it is time to leave, the shape of Felix’s fingers stay threaded between his own.

Sylvain would like to say he knows what love is, or at the very least, knows what it is like to be loved in turn. He’s not sure if such things are even reserved for immortals such as himself, but still, the seed of yearning continues to grow with age until it’s left a blossom of emotions that threaten to choke him. They spill from his mouth, rip free from his guts, and in the end there is a single thought: Felix.

He doesn’t see him next winter. Nor the one that follows. And it should be fine, it should be good, it should quell such vexing emotions that have caused him troubles with work. The first time he forgets a child and watches as their sleep turns sour, Sylvain knows he’s far gone. It’s not the first time someone’s held a choking grip around him.

With Felix’s disappearance, Sylvain takes it upon himself to care for the oak tree. It’s a fine sprout now, thick in its roots and plenty in its leaves. Except when he touches it, there’s an ache, and Sylvain feels as if it’s a shared bond. It echoes through his bones, up into his lungs and down into his belly. He thinks they both miss Felix.

When winter thaws and spring comes, that is when he hears the music dancing on the wind. It’s a familiar tune, one that Sylvain knows, and it beckons him like a moth to a vivid flame. It caresses him, ingrains itself on his skin, burns him alive and leaves his organs beating inside his throat.

By the time he touches ground, Felix is already there.

He’s got the same garbs on, the same brooch. The same violin and the same golden strings. Sylvain touches his own waist. He, too, still carries the pouch made of purple thread.

“I talked to my father,” Felix says.

“Yes,” Sylvains whispers, “you did.”

“I never knew these trees bore apples.”

Sylvain laughs. It’s such an incredibly aimless sentence that he feels it is all he can do. Aimless, but raw, and packed with such wonder that it leaves his chest squeezing painfully. “There’s a _scholion_ that states in ages past, a ploy at seduction would be made by throwing an apple. Have you heard of such things?”

And for once, Felix laughs too. It makes Sylvain stop, slack-jawed, and for a moment he thinks he might cease to exist. It’s warm, and beautiful, and so unlike everything he’s come to know about Felix that it seems nearly uncanny.

“Why did you stop?” Felix asks.

How does he explain such a wonder? How does he put it into words, formulate it with his lips and put it into the open air? Sylvain thinks such a thing cannot be done. Instead, he settles on saying, “Your laugh. I’ve never heard it before.”

Felix smiles, and it’s genuine, and sweet, and Sylvain thinks if he opened his mouth it would drip down his throat like honeysuckle. “I know how to laugh. But I fear I’d nearly forgotten that I could.”

Sylvain reaches for his hands. Or tries to, at least. Because instead Felix’s palms are clasped together, violin discarded. When he opens his fingers, inside rests a doorknob.

Instantly, Sylvain freezes.

“My father,” Felix says, softly, quietly, hesitantly, “knows who you are.”

And Sylvain doesn’t need to hold the doorknob to know it belongs to him. Doesn’t need to, because it’s got the same decals on it that a closet lost to time has. It’s made of oak, fine and refurbished, and when he brings fingers to it he knows that a child’s dreams run through its veins. It’s his, wholly and truly, his.

“When I was little,” Felix explains, “we were told stories about a boy in the woods. He dreamed himself a closet, and the trees provided. It had a knob that was missing and a chip just high enough that he could peer out of it. At night, he would leave and grant the other village children sweet tidings.”

Sylvain says nothing.

“It was you.” Felix brings his hand up, brushing back chestnut locks. When it comes to cradle his cheek, it lacks any resemblance of a biting chill. “It was you. You were the one who made the nightmares go away all those centuries ago. When the dreams of Glenn’s death were still fresh.”

Sylvain swallows. “That might have been me.” There’s no telling if it was, though the quiet wonder in Felix’s eyes likes to make him believe it was his doing. Perhaps nott all history needs to be accurate. Perhaps all that needs to be remembered is this: Felix leaning word and pressing their lips together, and Sylvain meeting him halfway.


End file.
